another interesting remnant of the communist regime in Olomouc: a fallout bunker built into the base of the city wall. during the Cold War, the Civil Defense Association decided that the best place for an impenetrable bunker of safety, in the event of nuclear holocaust, was deep inside and/or beneath the city walls. standing at the very edge of the Iron Curtain, it’s easy to understand why officials in the Czech Republic might worry about impending war with the west. early annexation by Nazi Germany may have spared the nation the kind of damage visited upon active war zones (Dresden is less than 50km from the Czech border, and only 150km from Prague), but fear of destruction in an East-West conflict seemed perfectly reasonable.
and so, the Civil Defense Association carved a hole into the city’s centuries-old defensive wall and installed your standard, ugly mid-century nuclear bunker. the city now runs tours of it, though I don’t know how keen I’d feel to enter through that gated door on the left. (tours weren’t running while I was there.)
